BIKER NEWS: Lawyer disputes Qld bikie's plea claims

BN- A GOLD Coast lawyer has hit back at claims he made his bikie client sign a form admitting involvement in the infamous Broadbeach brawl without telling him what the document was.

FORMER Bandido Ricky Chapman is trying to set aside his guilty plea for rioting during the September 2013 brawl.

He says his lawyer, Campbell MacCallum, didn't tell him what was in the document he signed and he didn't bother to read it.



But Mr MacCallum disputed the claims in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday, saying he explained the document to Chapman who expressed no concerns about entering a guilty plea.



"I explained what he was signing, what a guilty plea is," Mr MacCallum said.



"I accept I did not read it verbatim but he did have the document in front of him."



Mr MacCallum also said Chapman, who has admitted he's dyslexic and has trouble reading, denied that he had a literacy problem.



Crown prosecutor Jeff Hunter QC put it to Mr MacCallum that he gave Chapman the document, said nothing about it, and didn't read it out.



"That's incorrect," he replied.



Mr MacCallum said he initially believed the matter should go to trial and had been pressing to have the charge downgraded.



He said he eventually came to the view a guilty plea should be entered, but left the final call to Chapman.



Mr MacCallum also denied he had advised Chapman to plead guilty so his riot charge could be rolled up with an existing drug matter.



Earlier on Tuesday Scott Lynch, a barrister previously engaged to act for Chapman, gave evidence the former bikie told him during a conference that he just wanted to have riot charge "over and done with".



"He wanted to get the matter disposed of and I said to him: `Mate you can't just plead for the sake of disposing the matter, you need to understand the case against you'," Mr Lynch told the court.



Chapman was one of nine men who either pleaded guilty to riot or downgraded charges in the Southport Magistrates Court on May 4.



He's the last Bandidos member left in the court system following the brawl, which sparked Queensland's anti-bikie laws.



Magistrate Michael Quinn adjourned Chapman's matter to October 8.

More: http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/lawyer-to-hit-back-at-bikies-plea-claims/story-e6frfku9-1227517124668